How long doAppleslast in the fridge?

Freezing changes the unit, not just the number

Freezing does not just add time to this item, it changes the unit the answer is written in: 6 weeks in the sealed fridge against 8 months in the freezer, 5.7 times longer, months in place of weeks.

Every storage figure the USDA publishes for this item

All three places the USDA recognizes are rated here — pantry, refrigerator and freezer — which only 65 of the 466 foods in the data manage. Within Produce it is filed under Fresh Fruits.

• In the freezer8 months
• Unopened · in the pantry3 weeks
• Unopened · in the fridge4 weeks to 6 weeks

What the USDA adds in words

The USDA attaches 1 handling note to this item, reproduced below word for word. It is not a storage time: it qualifies the figure above rather than replacing it. These are the source's own sentences, not ours, and they are the part of the FoodKeeper record that a table of durations cannot carry.

In the freezer. Freezing guidance applies to cooked product.

Turning the range into a date

The window here is 6 weeks, short enough that the day it went in is worth writing down. Each clock has its own field: a figure counted from the day of purchase cannot be counted from the day you opened it.

• In the freezerUse by8 months after the day you stored it
• Unopened · in the pantryUse by3 weeks after the day you bought it
• Unopened · in the fridgeUse by4 weeks to 6 weeks after the day you bought it

Is this window about safety or about taste?

The answer at the top of this page reads 4 weeks to 6 weeks in the fridge. What decides that is the food and not the shelf the source files it on: Apples is raw and whole. Past it, judge it by look and smell: this window rates how good the food will be, not the day it becomes a hazard.

Held at 0 °F food stays safe for as long as it stays frozen, which is why a freezer figure counts as quality on this site whatever the food is. Every figure assumes the food was sound when you stored it, that your refrigerator holds 40 °F or below and your freezer 0 °F or below, and that the package was handled normally.

It is past the date. Now what?

Say the calculator above puts Apples past its 4 weeks to 6 weeks in the fridge window. Past that the calendar stops deciding and the food itself does. Mold, a slimy or sticky surface, soft or darkened spots, or a sour smell mean it goes out whatever the date says.

The FoodKeeper entry this page is built from prints storage times and nothing else, so anything past them here is USDA and FSIS guidance rather than a figure from the source. The whole rule, including the cases the source does not cover, is set out under what to do when the date has passed.

Two places, and one of them is the wrong one

The USDA rates two places for Apples in one state and they disagree: 4 weeks to 6 weeks in the fridge against 3 weeks in the pantry. This page answers with the refrigerator, the longer of the two. Both figures are the USDA's own, so this is a choice of where to put the food rather than a disagreement about how long it keeps.

The two sides of that multiplier are not the same dish

The 5.7× multiplier on this page is drawn across a change of preparation: the source's note on the freezer figure reads "Freezing guidance applies to cooked product". It divides 8 months frozen by 6 weeks sealed in the fridge, and those two are not the same dish. A multiplier whose sides are different preparations is worth printing only with the source's own scope note beside it.

Is that a long time?

Among the 89 items the USDA files under Produce, this item ranks 12 by how long it keeps outside the freezer. Spaghetti squash holds 2 months, Baby carrots holds 4 weeks. Among the 340 foods the USDA also gives a refrigerator figure, it keeps longer than 74% of them.

Items that behave the same way

The 6 items below are the closest match to this item by storage behavior, running 21 days to 2 months and bracketing its 6 weeks.

• Baby carrotskeeps 4 weeks sealed in the fridge
• Cranberrieskeeps 2 months sealed in the fridge
• Onionskeeps 2 months sealed in the fridgeyellow, white, red, etc.
• Potatoeskeeps 1 month sealed in the pantry
• Spaghetti squashkeeps 2 months in the pantrywhole
• Citrus fruit, lemon, lime, orange, grapefruit, tangerines, clementineskeeps 10 days sealed in the pantry

Products the USDA rates in the same places

10 other products are rated in exactly these places — freezer, pantry from the day of purchase and refrigerator from the day of purchase — out of the 466 in the file, so this is an uncommon shape of record. The nearest of them by keeping time are Baby carrots, Cantaloupe and Grapes. They are listed below with their own answers, closest first, which is why this list differs from the one on their pages. Of the 8 shown, 2 keep longer than this one. The longest-keeping of them is Tamarind at 6 months.

• Baby carrots4 weeks sealed in the fridge
• Cantaloupe5 days sealed in the fridge
• Grapes1 week sealed in the fridge
• Papaya1 week sealed in the fridge
• Honeydew2 days sealed in the pantry
• Watermelon3 days sealed in the fridge
• Pomegranate1 month sealed in the fridge
• Tamarind6 months sealed in the fridge

The rest of the Fresh Fruits shelf

The USDA puts this product on the Fresh Fruits shelf together with 29 others, and 4 of them keep longer outside the freezer. The shelf runs from Coconut at 1 year down to Cherries at 3 days. Nearest this product by window are Cranberries, Citrus fruit and Coconuts, which is the order the list below is printed in. The order counts the longest window outside the freezer, so this item sits here at 6 weeks rather than at the 4 weeks sealed in the fridge its own answer prints.

• Cranberries2 months2 months sealed in the fridge
• Citrus fruit21 days10 days sealed in the pantry
• Coconuts3 weeks2 weeks sealed in the fridge
• Kumquats3 weeks3 weeks in the fridge
• Pitaya/dragon fruit3 weeks2 days in the pantry
• Cantaloupe15 days5 days sealed in the fridge
• Blueberries2 weeks1 week sealed in the fridge
• Melons2 weeks2 days in the fridge once opened

If it has to keep longer than this

If it has to keep longer than 6 weeks, the Produce aisle gives 7 products that hold at least twice as long outside the freezer. The smallest step up is Pomegranate at 3 months against this one's 6 weeks; after it come Jicama, Pumpkins and Tamarind. They are printed below in the order the step gets bigger, not alphabetically. In the other direction, 76 entries in the category keep half as long or less, Citrus fruit and Coconuts among them. The largest step the category offers is Coconut at 1 year.

• Pomegranate3 months1 month sealed in the fridge
• Jicama4 months4 months sealed in the pantry
• Pumpkins5 months3 months sealed in the fridge
• Tamarind6 months6 months sealed in the fridge
• Dates12 months12 months sealed in the fridge
• Kimchi12 months6 months sealed in the fridge
• Coconut1 year8 months in the fridge once opened

The record this page is built from

This page is built from a single FoodKeeper row, record 248 — the source’s own number for it, not a position — one of the 661 rows in the snapshot. That row fills 3 of the nine storage slots with a time, and the binding figure on it is printed by the source in weeks, which is the unit this page keeps rather than converting it to days. The record carries 1 handling note, quoted on this page word for word. It is filed under Fresh Fruits inside Produce, which is where every shelf comparison on this page comes from.

Where these numbers come from

Every range on this page is published by the USDA FoodKeeper and reproduced unchanged. The multipliers, the rankings, the percentages and the dates are ours, computed from those ranges. Where the source gives a span such as 3 to 5 weeks, comparisons use the upper figure, and the full span is always printed.

Rankings cover only the items the USDA gives a usable figure for, and identical ranges share a place rather than being ordered arbitrarily. Neighbors are chosen by nearest storage time within the same category, never alphabetically: two foods filed next to each other by name usually have nothing to do with each other. The freezer is excluded from ranking because it flattens almost everything.

Where the USDA lists several kinds under one name, they share one page here and every kind keeps its own windows: the source prints them as separate rows, and a page that merged them would be inventing a figure the source never published. Comparisons and the place in the category are computed for the kind the plain name means — the shell egg for eggs, the can for tuna — which is settled name by name rather than by the order the source lists its rows in, and the page names it. Where the plain name means no single kind, the page prints no single figure at all and lists the kinds instead.

Source: USDA FoodKeeper, retrieved 1 September 2026. This site computes every comparison on this page and takes responsibility for it. Found a figure that does not match the source? Tell us on the contact page, with the page and the row — the parsing is mechanical, so a mismatch is our bug and we want it. How the whole site is built, which figures are ours and where the source can be checked is on the method page.

USDA index terms: apple

KeepsUntil is an independent reference built on public USDA data. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the U.S. Department of Agriculture or the Food and Drug Administration. Whether a given window is a safety limit or a quality window is stated on the page that prints it.